More evidence tort-reform works

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Paula Sweeney, a Dallas trial lawyer who has been handling medical-malpractice cases for 23 years, says the caps have already slashed her business. Since the beginning of the year, she’s filed only one case. In a normal year, she would have filed 12 to 15 by now. “The economic feasibility has changed,” she says. She says she believes the new restrictions will eliminate about 85% of medical-malpractice cases in the state.
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So, as I read this, tort reform works. Your mileage may vary, but it looks good from where I sit, and from where I work.

In addition to Governor Rick Perry’s press releases (http://www.governor.state.tx.us/divisions/press/initiatives/med_mal/fact_sheet), both objective and anecdotal evidence, like the Paula Sweeney statements, suggest that the September 2003 combination of legislative reforms (in all three systems—tort, medical discipline and medical liability insurance) are already disrupting the costly lottery-like aspects of the medical liability market in Texas and reducing the filing of invalid claims.

With our Rhode Island med-mal premiums totally out of control , (as detailed at: http://www.med-malliabilityreform.blogspot.com), a small group of office-based physicians is exploring the feasibility of emulating the Texas approach in our General Assembly in 2005.

“We’re turning down ten cases a week that we used to look very seriously at,” says Tom Rhodes, a San Antonio malpractice specialist. Children and the elderly will be disproportionately affected, he says, because the only damages they can receive are for pain and suffering.

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A new article came out last week examining the effect of medical lawsuit reform in states like Texas and California. (I can?t link to the full article because the Wall Street Journal is paid subscription only.) GruntDoc thinks that the…